Krack: says Aston still needs time to make steps with AMR24
Aston Martin Formula 1 team principal Mike Krack is confident that the Silverstone outfit can still make progress this year, but he admits that time is the biggest challenge.
Krack says that Aston knows what it has to improve, with Barcelona – where Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll finished 12th and 14th – highlighting a weakness in long corners.
However, Krack concedes that the busy 2024 schedule means that races will continue to slip by before the issues that hamper the AMR24 can be improved.
“It is a reflection of where we are,” he said after the Spanish GP. “Barcelona as a track is unforgiving. You know after Barcelona where you are, and we have seen it today, and we have to work hard to fix it.
“You have now five races in six weeks, and we have had quite a lot of understanding after Monaco, Imola, Canada as well, where we scored 14 points by the way, with the same car. And it’s about fixing them.
“You have no time. That’s the main problem at the moment. So we have to hang on like this, get the best out of the car each weekend, and bring these parts as quick as possible.”
Alonso said in Spain that he expects the Austrian and British races to be “painful” ahead of updates that will improve the car before the summer break.
“I share his optimism, but also I have to share the optimism,” said Krack. “The results are encouraging, and it’s just about the time that until we have everything.
“This is a continuous process. It is not like from one day to the next, you say, ‘Oh, this is it.’ This is something that a lot of people are working on, and a lot of people are analysing.
“And you come to conclusions, and you go to another race. You adjust your conclusions, because you see, ‘Ah it’s maybe not like that.’ So, this is a continuous process.”
He added: “We have, clearly, a better understanding than we had before. That is also what makes us confident looking forward.”
Krack pointed out that just a few weeks ago Aston was at the same level as the currently resurgent Mercedes team.
“If you see Mercedes has been on our level at the start of the season for a couple of races, and now they are with the top guys,” he said. “So you can see it’s possible, but it is not automatic. You have to work hard, and bring the steps to make it happen.”
“They were in the same position at the start of the year. They were in our competitive level for the first three, four races, I think. And they made steps from there. So we have all the objective data where we can clearly see the difference that they have made in terms of lap time performance. So it is possible.”
However Krack did not want to put a timeline on when the AMR24 will improve.
“It’s easy to make a prediction,” he said. “It’s easy to say now it will be three races, it will be seven. Bringing new parts means also you have to understand them again. This is also stuff that takes time. You see, you have seen Mercedes when they brought the upgrades, it took them maybe one, two three races to be at the top, but they were on the podium today.
“So I think they have clearly made a big step forward. Now, this is a good team. We know that from the past. So it shows us, together with what McLaren has done last year and McLaren has done this year, that it is possible.”
He continued: “The development is not always a straight line. You develop your car in a certain direction, then on the track, you discover that there is going to be other issues, and that you have to understand.
“With the intensity of the calendar week-on-week, you have to perform, and week-on-week, you improve your understanding. And sometimes it takes you maybe a little bit longer.”
Krack also stressed that the team itself is still developing its processes.
“When we zoom out we see we are still a team in the build,” he said. “We have a nice facility, nice offices, but there is still a lot of building going on, and also the process of understanding how your development goes needs to improve.
“So all-in-all, I think you know what is important in such a situation is, keep calm, focus on your issues, and work on bringing them. And if there is a lot of races in between, the situation that we have now, you have to go through and make the best of the package you have.
“Which I think in Canada, you can see it is possible to do. If circumstances allow, you can still score a chunk of points with the same car.”
Adam Cooper F1 